“A Labour government will clean the reef up. We will make the Rena’s owner pay through any means possible.”

That is not a policy. It is a threat or rhetoric posing as a serious statement.

Governments are not tyrants that can wave a wand and force a private company to pay money they are not legally obliged to pay. Regardless of your view on what the owners should do, the reality is Governments can’t force a company to pay money anymore than King Canute can keep back the tide.

The only thing a Government could attempt to do is pass a retrospective law forcing a company to pay money. The precedent of such an act would be hideous, but possible. Is this what Labour is saying it wiil do? If so, they need to come out and be explicit.

Just saying we will make the owner pay through any means possible is not a policy. It isn’t even a promise. It is meaningless rhetoric. If Labour can’t say what specific action they would take to make the owner pay, then their policy is as opaque as their leader’s secret trust fund.

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 3rd, 2014 at 4:00 pm and is filed under NZ Politics.
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45 Responses to “A threat is not a policy”

As I asked elsewhere, any truth in rumor the Throne is on order but may not be delivered for over three years.
Comrade Putin is on to it, evidently one is now government surplus in Kiev.

King David the first of NZ.
Gets around all that referendum shit and The Round Tuit Corporation is assessing a massive expansion/retooling corporate plan for 2017 with funding from the Wed Wussel Finance corporation

They’ve said “through any means possible”, and a retrospective law is the only means possible. That already seems pretty explicit to me.

There was a good article by Liam Dann in the Herald this morning, which closes with some advice for David Cunliffe; “Drop that economic experiment [Quantitative Easing] and convince the business community that your election wouldn’t be an absolute disaster for the country.” But when he keeps making threats like this, and when he says a new government won’t be bound by it’s agreement with SkyCity (and by precedent therefore any agreement the government makes), it’s pretty clear that a Cunliffe-led government would be the most business-hostile NZ has seen in decades.

Is ‘use any means possible,’ a threat or a bob each way, using any means possible isn’t guarantee of success only an attempt to lay claim to the higher ground without necessarily any success. But someone might believe it.

“…..is pass a retrospective law forcing a company to pay money. The precedent of such an act would be hideous, but possible. Is this what Labour is saying it wiil do? If so, they need to come out and be explicit….”

“Next they’ll be passing retrospective laws to make illegal police surveillance admissible as evidence in court!”

Urewera raids compo bid launched

Six people connected to the Urewera “terror raids” case have launched a compensation bid for alleged breaches of the Bill of Rights Act.

Te Rangikaiwhiria Kemara and five members of the Lambert family, whose Auckland house was raided, filed a suit against the Crown in the High Court at Auckland last month alleging unlawful search and seizure.

Tuhoe Lambert was among the 18 originally charged over military-style camps in the Urewera Ranges but he died before the trial could start. His son Neuton Lambert was named in court papers as one of the plaintiffs.

Governments are not tyrants that can wave a wand and force a private company to pay money they are not legally obliged to pay

Our current government didn’t seem to think this way when they did not hold our police or spies to the law and retroactively legislated to permit their behaviours. One might think it’s okay to pass retroactive legislation over such a minor thing a civil rights and privacy but not important issue like wallets but I personally don’t hold my civil rights in such low regard compared to my wallet.

So vote for them. But, “Oops – we have unfortunately found there are no means that are possible!”
It’s covered – even water-tight, so to speak.

• 50,000 kids living in poverty today will get $60 a week if they are born after April 1, 2016
• Cunliffe’s trust fund is so transparent you can Banks on it.
• You can’t have a Royal Visit too close to the Election, so the 2014 Election will now be in 2015.
• Our man-ban for a 50-50 balance of Labour members would only be illegal if we advertise it … like in a … er, um …
Election.
• 36 wells were drilled in the EEZ between 1999 and 2008 with no legislation in place to protect the environment, but shit
we were really thinking about it, and if only we had time …

I keep saying it – IT DOESN’T MATTER HOW LEGALLY OR MORALLY CORRUPT LABOUR’S RHETORIC IS; THEY HAVE ONCE AGAIN GRABBED THE HEADLINE.
Their voters are thick! and they know it. A good tactic that shouldn’t be exclusive to the loony left.

I suspect what’s happening here is Liarbore have noted the recent headlines and probably caught a whiff of what the Gweens were going to do about it so they took a pre-emptive strike lest the Gweens ban something before they do and capture the local iwi/enviwonmental vote.

I hope that’s what happened because if it is, we can all expect many more extremely entertaining forays into the lefty-unleashed mentality before this year is out.

I haven’t heard anything about the wreck presenting a danger. I think it was mission completed when all the heavy fuels were removed and some of the larger superstructure cut back to the water line. There wouldn’t be a stand down if was still leaking pollutants. The problem might be arising from the locals as a just concern, but making that convincing in comparison to the cost is a debate. The test on this one could be what Shane Jones thinks, unfortunately or fortunately, as DPF has pointed out Jones is the man with his feet on the ground and not his nose in the air making promises.

i thought it is strange they want to pass a law to punish a specific company.

I recall, a while back there was something tabled to fix the marine law around such incidents but the political parties thought it unimportant and skipped it.

That is the real issue, our politicians screwed up again because they were bickering about nonsense. Can’t recall if it was labour or national — they were going to increase the amount of damages though to comply with international law.

When people talk about shareholders paying damages they should remember shareholders are both big and small. If a small shareholder with some savings had put say $10,000 into Pike River should he now get a bill for $2k, $5k or say $20k? He has no control over the company. Limited liability means they owe only the amount of money they put into shares. For the last several years we have been exhorted to invest in productive enterprises. Who would invest in economic enterprises if it meant possible ruin? Also what of investment companies which take ordinary peoples’ savings and invest them in shares? Would they want retirement savings devalued by having to pay damages for insolvent companies?

When a company crashes everybody loses – investors lose their money, employees are not paid, subcontractors are not paid and lose materials supplied. Of course Pike River was a terrible tragedy not just a financial disaster but the rules are still the same.

The Rena – so is it leaking anything toxic? Is it visible above the waterline at low tide? Is it a navigation hazard? If the answers are no, then job done. Update the marine maps, tell the divers enter at your own risk and leave it to Mother Nature to corrode the sucker in to non-existence….

Retrospective legislation is a bit tricky and can be a worm can opener par excellence – but Tricky is Mr Cunliffe’s middle name so no surprise he is grandstanding on this

I think the expression ‘he is looking for a bandwagon to jump on’ must have been coined specially with Cunliffe in mind. His next promise will be that he will force the Russians to withdraw from Ukraine.

I just wonder how Cunliffe thinks he can make the owners of the Rena pay. The Rena was/is owned by Costamare Inc via a subsidiary Daina Shipping Co. It was leased by Mediterranean Shipping; and none of these are NZ companies. Costamare is Greek, with the Rena being registered in Liberia, MSC is a privately owned Swiss Company.

What’s Cunliffe going to do, ban either company from doing business in NZ which will probably affect NZ more than either company ?Will he try international legal action, very doubtful that he will get any outcomes that haven’t already been reached, or, verging on the ridiculous, use military action somehow ?

I guess it’s simply posturing for the believers. Yet another case of taking a position to look like you “care” and thus enabling one to flaunt one’s “moral superiority”; without however having any requirement to actually do anything of substance.

It’s worse than that, he’s saying that the legal process through the environment court doesn’t matter and he will bully boy his way around as pm. Greens will override any extradition of dotcom and now cunliffe says to hell with the law I’ll make a private company do whatever regardless of what lawful decisions are made even if by a court.